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Google+ Enters Open Beta
First time accepted submitter morgosmaci sends us a Google Blog post about the transitioning of Google+ from a closed "field trial" to an open beta. As part of the update, Google threw in a number of enhancements to the Hangouts feature: an Android client, named hangouts, integration with Google Docs, and a preliminary web service API. And you can finally search for users, posts, and other content.
But probably not in the way they wanted it to be. It was a success in making Facebook to improve their service. Facebook has now taken all the good things Google+ offered - including improving their games platform streams and just last week they added circles (and it goes both ways, Google+ also completely ripped off Facebook's look and feel)
What's even more worrysome for Google, and not just for Google+ but their entire search engine usage and YouTube, is that this week Facebook will announce a huge upgrade with among others music and video services inside Facebook. This means less time spent on YouTube listening to music (yes, people actually do that, a lot) and more time spent on Facebook. When you're listening to music on Facebook, your friends also see what you listen to - a feature teens especially love. Google+ is missing these things entirely, among the other ones Facebook has had for ages.
Now that Google opens up the beta it means they've lost the PR effect of being somewhat mysterious social network. And frankly, it's quite dead there. I've said about this before too on slashdot, and then people suggested some random people who to follow (mostly IT geeks). The thing is, I don't want to follow those random people. It's not interesting. I want to follow my friends and relatives, and maybe some pages of my interest (like games, tv shows, bands etc). Which is yet again another aspect that Google+ is missing - pages. And event planning, and countless amount of other features.
They had a good PR idea of keeping it mysterious in the beginning, but I really wouldn't want to be the guy who decided it's a good idea to go compete against Facebook with an unfinished product. They killed all the potential Google+ had.
I don't use Gmail for the same reason I don't use Google+. Nobody ever invited me to it.
Forever alone.
go to google.com/+ and you can sign up through there.
Or you can read the article and eventually find the link.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
And yet you _still_ cannot join Google+ if you have a paid-for Google Apps for Domains account.
Google products being beta is not news. Tell me when it's out of beta.
They were never going to build up users in the "closed" field trial when they only allowed each user to only invite a mere 100 other users... It was too tough to get in before.
Wake me up when I can use my Google apps account.
Look behind you. The door over there is not positioned such that the latch is not trapped in the strike plate. Please don't let it hit you on the way out.
I think you're starting to get into the "Free as in freedom or free as in beer" territory. This is open as in "available to everyone", not open as in "open source".
There's a reason there is no "Disagree" mod...
Yeah, the next time some says, "Can you please open the door", I am going to punch them in the face.
Facebook has been around for over 7 years. It took 4 years to reach 100 million members.
That's because Facebook spent its first two and a half years, from February 2004 through September 2006, in a closed field trial: first college students and then high school students were allowed in. Graduated before February 2004? The only way to get an account was to go back to grad school.
Can we stop calling things "open" which are actually proprietary?
Richard? Are you trolling slashdot again? Haven't you got something better ... Nevermind. Carry on.
I hate the no alias rule. And its tied to your Google Account which many people use for some serious stuff (eg checkout, gmail) so getting banned it a big deal.
And I don't like that its owned by Google. We really-really need some decentralized social networking thing. As far as I know diaspora and OneSocialWeb are dead or sick. Maybe some rich tech guy can get it kick started.
I'm pretty sure the patent on doors has expired.
"Open" doesn't mean non-proprietary. It just means that it's not restricted or limited to a select view. "Open beta" means anyone can enter. "Open API" means there aren't secret parts or you don't need to a license agreement to use it.
I was under the impression that if a Google+ ban affected non-Google+ services, a user could downgrade his profile to get out of the Google+ ban. According to this article: "Products like Picasa, Reader, and Buzz will revert to the same state they were in before you upgraded to Google+" after a downgrade.
who cares ?
That is, Facebook can never be an alternative to Facebook.
Nor can Google+ be an alternative to Google+. Truth is, Facebook was already an alternative to MySpace between the fourth quarter of 2006, when Facebook's field trial ended, and the fourth quarter of 2010, when MySpace became my_____.
Like all Google Social Networking Betas. They come out like a year prior to release and are closed beta's everyone knows about and are invite only lacking a ton of features and die before they even really get started. They kill themselves off and if they really want to compete need something complete and ready to launch with a "BANG"!!!
... I don't know what that is, but I do not wish to take part.
Can we stop calling things "open" which are actually proprietary?
I agree! I mean just the other day I passed a breakfast diner that had the GALL to be claiming they were open with a red and blue ELECTRIC NEON SIGN right there in the window!! This term has just become meaningless and shameful pandering, I mean how the fuck do you open source a steak and eggs breakfast anyways?!
shut. the. fuck. up.
I'm pretty sure the patent on doors has expired.
But just wait until I have the knob patented! I'll be having so many papers served on my patent infringers! When the process server comes knockin' at the door they had better open . . . um, maybe I need to think about this some more . . .
I always preferred "private beta" and "public beta" vs. "closed beta" and "open beta", but both are correct. I agree that nobody should be confusing this with closed- vs. open-source in this context.
Google Hangouts work on my Samsung GT-I9100 cell phone! Really! I'll bet AT&T is going to hate this.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I know, let's all discuss this on Google Wave! After all, Wave has massive potential for business users, http://mashable.com/2009/12/18/google-wave-business/. With 19 Educational uses, http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/the-power-of-potential-19-educational-uses-for-google-wave/.
Unfortunately, I can't find the uptake numbers for Wave. Of course, just because one product flops doesn't mean the next must too. It's just that one of the reasons Wave probably failed was that it didn't offer people anything they weren't already getting somewhere else and they were too entrenched to change. People who needed real time collaboration already had mature products available to them, Elluminate, Contribute (or whatever it was in 2009), Live Meeting, or even GoTo Meeting. For people who didn't need the collaboration, Wave was an answer to a question no one asked. Even in 2009, Facebook was "good enough" for people.
So what about Google+? Does the minor difference in features warrant changing off facebook? Probably not. Does it offer anything outstandingly new or innovative? Probably not. Are people even more entrenched in their facebook lives now than in 2009? Probably. Add to that the real name policy and the inability to work with non-european names and there's even less reason to move.
Way back at the dawn of time, when Google was just opening its eyes, it was competing with some really big search engines. Remember how big Yahoo used to be? Or AskJeeves? Google didn't bring anything new to the table, but they were able to compete by being better. And switching search engines is much easier than switching social networks. When they competed on the email front, they did it by giving people a ton of storage. When Hotmail was offering storage in the megabytes, Google was offering it in the gigabytes and even Hotmail had to play catchup. People hate to delete emails, and Google let them keep everything for ever and never clean.
The other two big products, maps/earth and image search, weren't really competing against an entrenched alternative. There was mapquest, but even it was new.
So my armchair quarterback position is that G+ will peak very soon then slowly decline until in another year or two we'll be talking about G+'s failure. Which will be right around the time Google announces G++.
well IMO they still have a reasonable shot, it depends on the bang that comes from actually advertising it now. Seeing the link on googles main page, may simultaniously draw the people who haven't tried it in, and have the people who tried it but left due to a shortage of people back at the same time. That may be the simultanious gathering required to generate the rolling momentum needed. I still fail to see how everyone reffers back to all the old google social network attempts. Wave was never designed as a social network, it was designed as a colaberation tool, It was more in line with google docs then an attempt to compete with facebook. It was something good for getting a bunch of people to work together for 1 goal, it wasn't a place to chat and hang out, it wasn't intended to make new friends, it was never a social network at all. Buzz was an attempt at a social network, and it flopped badly instantly because of the attempt to roll it out to everyone simultaniously, while simultaniously not thinking about the privacy issue caused when you simultaniously instantly add everyones top 10 most e-mailed people to their friends list, and show friends lists publicly. Most importantly the ones who were hurt the most by such a mistake, were members of the press, and politicians. You instantly tick off the press, and good luck getting good publicity to cary on your product.
And?
You get a notice when the photo is uploaded and (unlike facebook) that photo isn't out there for the world to see by default. The facebook apps have similar functionality, but unlike G+ immediately share your nudies with your whole friends list. Hi Mom!!
-GiH
You guys seriously did not expect Google to have an insta-win over Facebook, did you?
The success of G+ is going to take time, but it will happen. Think about it: you already have an account, one day you'll find someone or something worth following on G+. You'll comment, your friends are going to notice. And believe me, they WILL notice, since there is a G+ cross-integration over the whole array of Google products (Search, YouTube, Docs, Gmail, etc): this black top bar with this red square and number in it will keep haunting you. You'll get hooked in. You'll start checking it out. Eventually momentum will turn. Google cannot and will not give up on G+ now - they have put everything on it. G+ is no Wave, it is no Buzz. The G-train will keep pushing. Until it hits your G-spot (sorry for the innuendo :-)
Google keeps on adding awesome features at the great speed. Facebook will have a hard time to follow due to its size if Google keeps pushing like that. Now that G+ API have been published, the evolution is going to start even faster with input of 3rd parties.
And what can you expect from Facebook in the nearest future? Even more integration with Skype and Bing. Have you really been enjoy these two products lately? Really? FB will keep pushing you to open even more of your private data by default to make advertisers happy. You like that future? Really?
Don't worry, the inert mass that are typical Facebook users will take their time. They will even keep using FB for the next few years, but the tide will slowly turn in G+ favour due to its convenience, simplicity, and speed. One day, while searching for Facebook in Google for 1000th time, average Joes will discover this red square on top, and click it. And chain reaction will start.
Now, don't get me wrong, Facebook will still keep growing and have a very successful IPO at the end of 2012, but after that - the game is on.
I'll leave you with this thought - the fall of a former giant called MySpace also took some time...
I was pretty excited by Google+, but the whole "real name" fiasco turned me off completely. Not that I really care that much about using a pseudonym vs my real name, but I think that it just isn't Google's damn business what somebody wants to call themselves.
I mean how the fuck do you open source a steak and eggs breakfast anyways?!
Give the recipe with the meal
As excited as I am about this platform being opened up to more users (I am getting tired of seeing nothing but CmdrTaco and Lady Ada updates), Google+ is still lacking the one thing that would help it dominate in the social networking market: scantily clad 16 year old girls.
Say what you want about how annoying 16 year old girls are on the internet (OMGPWNIES layouts and such), but they really are the catalyst to social networks taking off. Once high school girls start to establish a presence on a website, other high school girls want to join to keep up with their friends, and every male on the internet wants to join so he can creep on those girls' profiles and fap to their bikini pictures. That may sound offensive to some, but it is the one truth of social networking.
Until Google has a large userbase of skanky girls to lurk on, it will not take off as the dominant social platform.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
And Buzz posts still don't show in the plus stream
And companies are still not able to create Plus profiles
And there is no way to integrate Plus and Twitter without hacky browser extensions.
(I am sorry of my terrible english skills!)
I got Google+ invitation at same day when Google opened it. I were there just few weeks until I dropped off. I simply used Google's download utility to download all my data from Google Services (backup) and then I deleted my Google+ account (leaving my Google profile).
There were actually three reasons for that:
1. Google+ look was too Facebook like. I never registered to Facebook, I have never used facebook more than 2 minutes on my friend computer just to check out something. The facebook interface is terrible. Please, let me to theme and re-organize panels and parts of the interface, choose what parts I want to see and where. Without that I need to use third party browser addons etc.
2. Circles was great idea and the usability how easy it was to make circles. But really.... DOES EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING CIRCLE NEED TO SEE ANYONE ELSE?
What I expected, was that I can make circles as mailinglists. That when I add 5 person to circle, they dont know anyone else on that circle. Then when they comment my posts, they dont see other persons posts there. More like Email system but in social and visual way.
I have have lots of contacts what I need to deal all the times. Thats why I still use email as it really allows me to limit what others see what contacts I have. Some of my friends can be enemies to each other, but still they are my friends from same circle.
Like I have seven friends from same school, from three of them, hates each other (2 vs 1). But still, those 3 and all 7 are my friends. When I am contact with them, I know what and from whom I can talk with them. I dont say anything about that 1 to those 2 or vice versa as they dont care and they dont want to hear. I am diplomatic person, I dont make a stand or follow policy "my friends enemy is my enemy". If someone is asshole to me, then I simply ignore him. If someone teases my friend without reason, I will stand between. If my friend teases someone else, I will stand between as well. I can say to my friends to shut up or when they do wrong. Friendship does not mean I need to support everything what others does just because they are my friends.
3. Real full name. Even that I dont have problem to show real name. I like my privacy. I have few persons who I dont like (Ex-*friends), real nasty people or so on. I want to control who can find me and who does not.
Thats why I really logged out as I want that Google adds feature when someone search your name, you do not show up on the list. But you get notification that who made the search of your name/address. And then you can choose can that person find you or not. If you allow the query, then the searcher will get notification that result is added.
Simply: I search person John Smith. I only receive those who allows to be found by default. But every John Smith out there will get notification that I made query with their name. Then John Smith who I know, can choose to be founded or not. If he choose to be found few days later, I get then notification that "John Smith permits your search". And then I can add him to my contact list.
If points 2. and 3. would be fixed, I would join back to Google+.
And I bet many other would as most of my friends would really much have same features when I told them my opinion. They want to list all their friends to single place. Then group people to lists and post something only those lists and individuals, without anyone else to see who else got the post. And when they comment my post, no one else should see that they have answered my post.
So simply, email and postlists are still the best and only way to well socialize virtually with the people. You can even encrypt your mails.
You're entitled to one.
-GiH
Why does the whole post sound like an advertisement?
Don't quote me on this.
Wow you have completely the opposite take to me! With G+ forcing me to use my real name, tracking my emails, tracking my browsing habits, that little red dot is a constant reminder that Google is no longer just sifting data to serve me ads but is constantly watching ME. Not some hypothetical concept of 'me' but one that can be linked to my parents, my friends, my work colleagues.
Not that I'm going to stop using Google for search, I love it too much. Instead I do the same as I do with Facebook, I keep multiple profiles using Firefox extension "Cookie Swap", and will do so until both Facebook and G+ are consigned to the dustbin of history by the next service that "gets it".
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
This would be very difficult to implement without violating the searcher's privacy. Imagine I, Jane Doe, am searching for a certain John Doe. So I type his nickname, Johnnie. Guess what, if G+ is any good, it will throw up a couple of Johnnies who aren't John Doe. But searching for John Doe means exposing yourself to the other Johnnies who aren't John Doe. Of course there could be a requirement that you know John Doe's real name. But if you do, then why have a search feature at all? Matching to a simple database of user names to real names would be enough (e.g. Jdoe is the user name of John Doe).
Google's personalization as a result of creating a google+ account is just terrible.
Despite creating my account in Canada, using it for years in Canada, I added Google+ to my account while I'm living in Korea. This immediately broke my news archive searches. They would only search Korean language papers in Korea, they wouldn't even search any of the major English language Korean papers in Korea. my account was fully set to English, and I even went through and purged all mention of Korea from my profile, no change.
Logged out my searches were fine. I encountered a google employee on here a few weeks back who said he'd submit a bug report
I was just doing a google news archive search (logged out) this morning, and suddenly I'm getting nothing..only korean results. Yet I'm logged out. Great they must have added some kind of persistent cookie to screw with me I thought. This is despite being at the Canadian portal, google.ca and having clicked the button to "Serve me in English". I logged in to try clearing any residual cookies (log in then out) but upon logging in, suddenly I was getting full english archive search.
They reversed the behaviour. Logged in, I get proper archive searches, logged out, now suddenly I can't search the archives of any English news source from Korea. Absolutely stellar. This is the kind of work I'd expect from some start-up being run by one guy in his basement that doesn't quite have a full grasp on what he's doing. The result of this is anyone who travels to Korea will not be able to do a proper news search in Korea unless they've logged into google+. Business traveller? Don't have google+, hope you don't need to look up an old news report while you're here.
This is pathetic really.
Pro tip for anyone who is not an average White Anglo Saxon Protestant Male who has no web presence.
If you LGBT or just female, an administrator on a famous website, deal with trolls all day, etc etc... these are all good reasons to NEVER tell people your real name; especially where it can easily be found using G+ circles. The ways people can fuck you over are absolutely endless.
A friend of mine found this out the hard way. She switched to using a legitimate sounding but false name (you ever wonder why high profile geeky women have so many aliases?).
I took the other solution: I nuked my Google account from orbit. (After which some apps on my phone stopped working, but that was fixable. A small price to pay!)
I guess I am a Google fanboy and happy G+ user that wants G+ to succeed. Sorry if the whole post left a 'marketing' taste for you :) One thing I want to be clear about - I don't want G+ turn into bigger version of FB. Healthy competition is good, especially when it benefits end users.
Google actually back-pedalled on 'real name' policy. It has to be a name you are known by, which could be pretty much anything. See will.i.am on G+, for example.
As for Facebook, it continuously pushes its users to put more data in the open, it has been caught selling private user data to advertisers. FB partner sites can access your info just because your friend visited it while logged into FB, by extracting their list of friends (unless you found your way in a myriad of FB privacy settings and clicked all the correct options - and there is no guarantee FB won't come up with another way to screw your privacy over next month). On top of that, FB founder openly called FB users 'stupid fucks'. Tell me how can you trust such company? And what good can your cookie scrubbers/swappers do, if your FB friends tell a lot about you without even realising it?
I am not saying Google is an angel. But it has much better track record when dealing with private user data. Lots of people use Gmail, but a lot more still use Yahoo & Hotmail. FB also has built-in email. And for many people, FB messages have replaced any other form of IM and even email. So Gmail is far from being a dominant email out there.
So, out of the two, I consider G+ a lot less evil than FB, and wish it every success. Don't get me wrong - I'd be more than happy when a better service comes along. But until then anything that changes the current state of things in social networks world is good.
Then there's Diaspora, an internet compliant, decentralised social network. That's the one we /. denizens should be supporting if we believe in information freedom and individuals' rights to their own information. G+ is still a big, corporate leviathan trying to own our personal data. Be it Face Ogle or Goo Book, it doesn't matter, having the data decentralised is the only ethical, as well as technically sound, way of doing social networking.
False. You can join Google+ if you have a Google Apps for Domains (paid-for or not) account.
You can't join Google+ using a Google Apps for Domains account, which is completely different than what you said.
I'll leave you with this thought - the fall of a former giant called MySpace also took some time...
One of the first posts on my Facebook wall about 5 years ago was something along the lines of "This site sucks, MySpace for the win"